Chapter 92: A Unique Text Adventure Game

In the experience store.

Alex Parker conducted a final check of "Lifeline's" storyline and said to Amy Johnson and Alva Castillo, "Alright, it's approved."

"Yay! Awesome!" Amy cheered.

This game was essentially completed independently by Amy and Alva, with minimal interference from Alex. It held significant sentimental value for them.

(If you don't count the seven or eight times Alex guided Alva through rewriting the story.)

Alva also breathed a sigh of relief, a smile spreading across his face. Despite the numerous rewrites and major adjustments along the way, they had finally finished.

Throughout this process, Alva had gained a deeper understanding of game narratives and improved his ability to grasp player psychology.

Now, Alva was eager to see how players would react to this game. Would they like his storyline?

Alex installed "Lifeline" on his phone and handed it to Lily Emerson. "Alright, you get to be the first guinea pig."

...

Lily was also curious.

They all knew Amy and Alva had been working on a text adventure game, but they had no idea what the game was about or how the story went.

Text adventure games were quite common in this world and were a classic game type. Many narrative-focused game designers started with text adventure games.

These games were relatively easy to create; a good script was all you needed. The rest involved buying some nice illustrations and hiring voice actors.

However, because text adventure games were plentiful, it was challenging to make one that stood out.

In this world, text adventure games were similar to those in Alex's previous world, mainly focusing on modern or ancient time-travel themes. This was because many text adventure games targeted female players who favored these themes.

Lily also played text adventure games occasionally. But lately, she found many of them to be repetitive, using the same template to tell different stories, which quickly became tiresome.

If text adventure games only differed in their stories, they were no better than romance novels.

Lily was a bit worried that "Lifeline" might be too similar to other text adventure games. But considering it was overseen by Alex, whose games were usually creative (except for "I Am MT"), she decided to give it a try.

The game's icon had a predominantly black color scheme and featured a small character in what appeared to be an astronaut suit. In the upper right corner of the icon was an ambiguous signal symbol.

"Hmm... Could it be a sci-fi theme? That would be quite rare," Lily thought.

She clicked the icon to start the game.

The game began with a small prompt window: "Lifeline is an interactive story told over several days. Taylor will keep in contact with you at all times. Please allow this game to send notifications to enhance your gaming experience."

Lily clicked "Allow."

The screen transitioned to a chat-like interface, and soon, message notifications began to pop up.

[Connecting]

[Establishing Connection]

[Receiving Message]

"Hello? Hello?"

"Does this thing work?"

"Can anyone hear me?"

After three consecutive questions, Lily was a bit puzzled. She saw two response options: [Who is speaking?] and [I can hear you].

Feeling that the two options were similar and probably wouldn't impact the outcome much, she clicked [I can hear you].

"Oh, thank goodness! It's great to finally reach someone!"

"I've been waiting for hours!"

Two more options appeared: [Who are you?] and [What happened?]

Lily considered it for a moment and decided it was better to ask about the person's identity first. So, she clicked [Who are you?].

After making these two choices, Lily realized how this game differed from other text adventure games.

"Lifeline" had no narrative descriptions or background details; the entire game was like a chat app where you communicated with a fictional character rather than a real person.

The game interface was designed to look like a sci-fi chat app to create a sense of realism. Even sending notifications to players gave them the illusion that someone was really talking to them.

Lily continued chatting with the astronaut named Taylor, following her instincts.

Through the conversation, Lily learned that Taylor was an astronaut on a transport ship that had crashed on some satellite. Taylor was now in a state of complete confusion. Initially a student on the ship for an experiment, Taylor had no idea how to survive in this emergency.

Despite the situation, Taylor remained surprisingly optimistic, even having the time to make jokes...

Lily found herself amused by the chatterbox.

"Looks like the main task is to help this astronaut escape, right? It doesn't seem too difficult, probably easier than those mind-bending palace intrigue plots," Lily thought.

"There's a white mountain a few miles away from me. But this mountain... looks strange. It's symmetrical, not like a natural formation."

"As for the crash site of the Varya, it seems closer to me than the mountain. What do you think I should do?"

Two options appeared below: [Head to the crash site] and [Head to the mountain].

Lily quickly realized this was a critical plot choice. Since Taylor had hinted that the mountain looked unusual and it was farther away, the crash site seemed the more logical choice.

She selected [Head to the crash site].

"Right, makes sense. There might be survivors there..."

"Okay, I'll head south. It might take about an hour. I'll notify you when I get there."

After saying that, the system indicated "Taylor is busy."

Lily was stunned. What did that mean?

There were no further options, and Taylor had stopped talking. The game seemed to pause without any prompts.

She reread Taylor's messages.

"Does this mean I really have to wait an hour for Taylor to contact me again?!"

Lily was bewildered. This was the first time she had encountered a text adventure game that made players wait for an hour.

With no other choice, Lily decided to do something else in the meantime, keeping the process running so she wouldn't miss Taylor's messages.